Windows 8 usage can't even keep up with Vista/s poor numbers. (Data from Net Applications)
Posted on 03/05/2013 8:24:48 AM PST by ShadowAce
Windows fans will whine, but Net Applications' desktop operating systems numbers don't lie. Windows 8's pathetic user adoption numbers can't even keep up with Vista's lousy numbers.
Windows 8 usage can't even keep up with Vista/s poor numbers. (Data from Net Applications)
The numbers speak for themselves. Vista, universally acknowledged as a failure, actually had significantly better adoption numbers than Windows 8. At similar points in their roll-outs, Vista had a desktop market share of 4.52% compared to Windows 8's share of 2.67%. Underlining just how poorly Windows 8's adoption has gone, Vista didn't even have the advantage of holiday season sales to boost its numbers. Tablets--and not Surface RT tablets--were what people bought last December, not Windows 8 PCs.
Windows 8, and its relatives Windows Phone 8 and RT, make no impression at all in the smartphone and tablet markets. (Credit: Net Applications)
Windows 8's failure is actually greater than it appears. The tablet and phone markets in 2007 were next to non-existent. Now, in a market where NPD expects tablets to out sell notebooks by year's end, neither Windows 8 nor its cousins Windows RT and Windows Phone 8 even appear on NetApplication's mobile and tablet reports for February 2013. How bad is that? Android 1.6, with is tiny 0.02% of the market, does make the list.
I predicted that Windows 8 would be dead on arrival last year, but it's flopping even more than I thought it would be. So, why has Windows 8 been such a failure? Here's my list:
I said it before, I'll say it again: Metro, or whatever you want to call it, may make an OK tablet interface, but it's ugly and useless on the desktop. It requires users to forget everything they ever learned about Windows and learn an entirely new way of doing things for no real reason. To quote a popularly held opinion, Metro is "awful."
True, you can use a more traditional Windows interface, but you know what would have been a lot better? If Microsoft had just kept the Windows 7 Aero interface for the desktop version of Windows 8 and give up this idea that the Metro touch-friendly interface is for every device.
Can you tell me one new thing that Windows 8 brought to the desktop that was truly innovative? Exciting? Engaging? I can't. Windows 8 is faster than Windows 7, but that's about it -- and that dual interface mess makes it slower for practical purposes.
I said all along programmers wouldn't like throwing out their hard-won .NET, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) expertise to work natively on Windows 8. I was right. Gabe Newell, co-founder and managing director of video game company Valve, said it best: "Windows 8 is a catastrophe for everyone in the PC space." He then started moving his Steam game empire to Linux.
We saw this happen before with Vista and XP. Then, as now, the new operating system -- Vista -- was not better than the old operating system -- XP -- so very few people moved to it. We're seeing it again now.
In addition, in an economy that's still not moving forward quickly, who really wants to move from tried-and-true Windows 7 to new, expensive Windows 8 PCs? As Sterne Agee analyst Shaw Wu observed, the $500 to $1200 price tags slapped on Windows 8 hardware makes it "uncompetitive" in a world where people want iPads and Android tablets.
If you are going to buy a new computing device in 2013, chances are it's going to be an Apple iPad, an inexpensive Android tablet, or a Chromebook. The PC desktop isn't dead, but it's not very profitable either -- and Windows 8 isn't helping PC sales.
Microsoft has to know this. If Microsoft does indeed start selling, or rather renting, Microsoft Office for iPad, you'll know they've seen the light. Microsoft's future then will not lie in operating system and application sales, but in services.
And Windows 8? Like Vista before it, Microsoft will re-release an older version of Windows, Windows 7 this time instead of XP, and start talking about wonderful Windows Blue, the next version of Windows, will be.
What version of FireFox are you using? I installed FF 19 and was having fairly constant crashing too. I googled it and people were saying the problem was specific to v19 and the fix was to use the v20 beta. I loaded that and I think I might have had a couple spontaneous crashes since, but very few.
No really, tell us how you feel! JK, I feel the same way. What really chaps my hide is when they think they're entitled to so much as one CPU cycle or one byte of [your] RAM to protect THEMSELVES from YOU!! After you paid for the stuff!
Like the sound of that. So far so good, so, as Forrest Gump said, "..since I've gone this far, I might as well just keep going..." :)
Got a new laptop and didn’t have a choice of OS.
Win8 blows donkey d**ks!
It took me three days to find how to turn off the annoying crap that shows up if you drag too quickly across the touchpad (it doesn’t have a touch screen). I was ready to toss the whole thing out the window until I got a mouse. It tamed it dow a lot.
I also downloaded a Win7 look alike desktop so I don’t have to look at all that Metro crap.
I am so glad I kept my old 6 year old laptop with XP. I hardly use the new one...almost a shame because it’s much faster than the old one. Just a pain to use. I may find a comp0uter repair shop that will downgrade it to Win7.
bump
Yep, Secure Boot is supposed to able to be switched off, But it probably won’t work on most systems. This is why microsoft pushed manufacturer’s to make in MANDATORY in ALL BIOS’s. If it ships with Winblows 8, you are more than likely STUCK with it.
Nothing wrong with Linux. Used it many times to troubleshoot, rescue damaged machines.
Clean user interfaces but obviously can be difficult to get peripherals to work.
Many users had to move from xp to vista because they needed a Windows OS that accommodated the larger drives and ram chips. I'm not aware of any tech reason for switching to Windows 8.
Yup.
Microsoft learned nothing from Canonical. I like Unity and I think the interface works on every kind of device you migbt have.
Mark Shuttleworth was smart enough to pick ONE interface and aggressively improve it. I find it intuitive and easy to use.
A dual interface Windows was Microsoft’s worst idea. What was wrong with the Windows 7 Aero user interface that needed to be fixed? Windows 8 with traditional UI/Metro is a worse disaster than Vista.
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